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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23759734">Eccentricity and Two-Body Problems</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/misgivings/pseuds/misgivings'>misgivings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Space, Bigender Sollux Captor, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Hard-ish sci-fi, Multi, Non-Binary Roxy Lalonde, Science Fiction, Space Flight, Zero-gravity sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:22:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,866</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23759734</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/misgivings/pseuds/misgivings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><span>TA (she/her): go for maiin engiine2?</span><br/><span>TG: fucking a my dude</span><br/>Sollux and Roxy are the only crew aboard the experimental spacecraft YS-413, sent to investigate a station gone silent. The job would be easier if they could tolerate each other, but they have a month on the way to figure it out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sollux Captor/Roxy Lalonde</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>HSCCS Promptfest 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Repairs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACatOutOfTime/gifts">ACatOutOfTime</a>.</li>



        <li>In response to a prompt by
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACatOutOfTime/pseuds/ACatOutOfTime">ACatOutOfTime</a>  in the  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HSCCSPromptfest2020">HSCCSPromptfest2020</a>
          collection.
        </li>
    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <strong>Prompt:</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy and Sollux are engineers for a troll/human coalition space corps. (Or maybe it's not exactly a coalition.) They are sent to a remote location to address a concern there, being the two best engineers in the group. However, in transit, some feelings bloom between them, because of their similar expertise. Should be initially reluctant but come to like one another.</p>
<p>Feel free to make this as weird and kinky as you want ;3 </p>
<p>Bonuses for NB characters</p>
<p>Intended relationship is Roxy ♠ Sollux</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Two things were more vital than air for microgravity living: duct tape and sticky notes.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Sollux woke in the Alternian side of their craft, and the first thing he noticed was the uncharacteristic silence. Space was not, despite common misconception, quiet. Oh, sure, if you had the misfortune of ending up in the vacuum sans pressure suit you wouldn't hear anything for the depressingly brief remainder of your life. But </span>
  <em>
    <span>living</span>
  </em>
  <span> in space means adjusting to a veritable cacophony. Alternian vessels, partly biotechnical in nature, have the regular thump of distributed bloodpushers as symbiotic systems extract carbon from the dirty air. Roxy regarded it as creepy; trolls differed, finding the regular beat something to synchronise their life to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span class="roxy">outside! txt me cutie ;*</span><br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And speaking of Roxy, the human modules of this Frankenstein craft </span>
  <em>
    <span>should</span>
  </em>
  <span> be filled with the perpetual noise of mechanical oxygen scrubbing, a harsh rushing hiss that set Sollux on edge for the first couple days near it. The fact that it was off</span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span>and that he hadn't been woken by a warning klaxon of some sort</span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span>required investigation. He rose out of the slime of his recuperacoon and, before he could fight through the mental fog of morning space-brain, one of Roxy’s signature pink notes resolved the mystery.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They had stuck it right on top of his medicine drawer, where he couldn't miss it. He hummed, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and ran that through his tired brain while he towelled off any quickly-cooling balls of sopor slime that had stubbornly followed him out. That added up—Roxy had probably preempted a problem during their morning checklist and turned off the scrubbers while they did EVA to fix something-or-other. Even with the myriad improvements technology sharing had yielded, space travel was still a constant war against entropy, demanding a crew be confident in dealing with whatever malfunctions cropped up. Roxy and Sollux, as it happened, were both excellent engineers in differing specialisms, making them uniquely suited to skeleton-crew a hybrid ship.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Chiding himself for even acknowledging Roxy’s competence in any capacity, Sollux ripped the cap off a packet of nutrient slurry with his teeth and slurped it while taking his laptop out of sleep mode and catching up on email. His crewmate could wait until the stimulants in his morning shake set in and made him capable of dealing with their bullshit.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In the end, he didn't end up needing to call them over the ship network, because he was halfway through a breakfast burrito when he heard the alert of the airlock engaging. Food in his mouth, he drifted from handhold to foothold to handhold as he nimbly drifted through bulkheads and around floating cables, to be there and meet them when they came in.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn't the most altruistic course of action he'd ever taken, mind. A few seconds after the compartment was pressurised, Roxy came through, throwing their helmet to Sollux while they started the arduous process of undressing. He begrudgingly assisted and swore it was just procedure. When he wordlessly drifted in close to snap open the seal at their waist, they gave a crooked, playful grin.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Can't an enby even catch a good morning anymore?” They asked, kicking free of the lower half of their suit as soon as they could, and pulling out of the top half with just as much grace. After doffing the suit they were in just an undershirt and tight workout shorts, pale human skin flushed pink with exertion and glistening with the surface tension of sweat, an inescapable problem with zero-Gs to speak of. Younger, on Alternia, Sollux wouldn't have dared to so brazenly leer over a peer. Out here, and no longer a wiggler, he was confident enough to at least lay the cards on the table. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It's good </span>
  <em>
    <span>night</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Lalonde. You culturally insensitive douchebag.” He lisped. Roxy had given him shit for it when they first got assigned together, and he could still remember the way they'd mimicked him. Douthesbag. “The fuck went wrong today? Your half of the ship is basically silent, so every gulp of air you take is billable to the Empress.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Chillax. Some debris Swiss-cheesed heat exchanger four so I suited up and fixed it.” They said, taking a moist towel and cleaning off, the barest impersonation of a shower that they could muster this far from shore.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You know only people with a death wish do solo EVA, right?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Lol. Yeah, but you looked so cozy, I couldn't find it in me to wake ya.” Roxy folded their vacuum suit a little and tucked it into place, closing the airlock with their foot in the kind of four-limbed multitasking acrobatics possible for a spacer. In lieu of understanding gravity, the brain freed up space to develop new, previously-impossible motor skills. The convenience was cancelled out by the eventual embarrassment and broken cutlery suffered on returning to surface.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They didn't get changed into anything fresh, maybe sufficiently warm for now. Sollux privately wondered (hoped?) it was a tease, or even a challenge. They'd seen one another in all sorts of candid personal moments and states of undress, the kind where a stammered apology and quickly averted eyes was the only appropriate response. But if they intended to spend the rest of the day floating around in underwear, Sollux didn't know how much of that he could bear.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Just as he was going to start losing his mind, they kicked off the back wall and propelled themselves into a deeper module, brushing past Sollux and putting him into a tumble. He righted himself, orienting with the retrograde direction, and shoved off after Roxy to give them a piece of his mind.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What's the fucking rush, did you piss your suit lining? Because I am not repairing anything that gets into.” He grumbled, snatching an ampoule of water from the dispenser as he passed it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“My digimon, Sol. They want mama. I feel it in my soul.” They winked at him, drifting backwards into their quarters. Their ship wasn't exactly cushy, but they had more than enough space to designate a module each that was more-or-less a private space. The troll’s nose twitched as he followed them inside. The interior of a craft inevitably ended up stinking of its inhabitants, and the fabrics inside this end of the ship kept a distinct smell of Roxy in the air. He wasn't entirely sure how that made him feel.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, that sickeningly pale dating game you're addicted to. Retro human games suck ass.” Sollux got the bird flipped at him for that, which made him flash a shit-eating grin. “Your embarrassing taste aside, I just got the new firmware update. If you want to flash your human rumble spheres to any suitors, do it in the next five minutes. Comms will be down at minimum forty mins, more if you piss me off.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Your mom loves my spheres.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Fifty minutes.” Sollux corrected. He threw the half-finished pouch of water at Roxy’s head, the reaction force guiding him back to the bulkhead, which he flipped around easily and left Roxy to their personal business.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Music came on over the speakers a couple minutes later. The soundtrack to their lives was a constant struggle over the choice; Roxy loved cheesy pop songs about love, dance music, and chiptunes that drove the troll crazy. Sollux liked thrash metal, dubstep, big beat, anything loud and harsh, especially so when pissing them off was his highest priority. On good days they compromised and played electronic music they could both stand, and on bad ones they wrestled for control over the bluetooth. Sollux liked the bad days.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Insertion Burn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maybe a month had passed on the voyage when Roxy began to note some changes. Neptune’s course and their own were converging. It was visible as a blue speck by the naked human eye now, and they stopped thinking of it as an abstract goalpost bound in coordinates and vectors and began to see it as something concrete and real. No ultra-resolution space probe photography could compare to that first smudged glimpse, proof after weeks of hurtling through the void that they were going somewhere.</p>
<p>
  <span class="sollux">TA (she/her): 2piinniing thii2 motherfucker, hold on 2 2omethiing</span>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>Roxy was perched in the cargo module, which had luxurious windows (by the standards of space travel). They could hook their bare feet into purpose-built stirrups at the control station and use the gas giant as a visual anchor while the rest of their reality spun. To the side, their laptop displayed avionics and played a podcast. A distant gurgle came from the bowels of the ship, and massive slick cilia unfurled as the alien “engine” came awake. A disgusting perversion of all natural order, Roxy watched a cluster of them flap and writhe, pushing off against nothing and exerting a force that made the ship rotate end over end.</p>
<p>Not even the trolls knew the mechanism underlying these biotechnical gifts cultured from their patron outer god, stymying an entire generation of human physicists and making them doubly unnerving to be around. Roxy could, if a moment of doubt struck, pull up schematics for any piece of human hardware on the ship. Beset on all sides by vacuum and cosmic rays, they could trust the physics and objective numbers behind every millimetre of aluminium that kept them alive. But Alternian “technology” had more in common with religion than science. It was by faith alone that anyone could depend on it to routinely make a mockery of rational laws.</p>
<p><span class="sollux">TA (she/her): go for maiin engiine2?</span><br/>
<span class="roxy">TG: fucking a my dude</span><br/></p>
<p>There was a rumble like intestines as fuel (or was it more like food?) rushed into the powerful flagella and they lashed the void. The acceleration wasn't like Roxy was used to from rockets; it was more of an irregular pulsing that made moving under its influence treacherous. They elected to stay in their comfortable spot, loading up an emulator on their laptop. Sollux shepherded the engine discerningly from the aft module, monitoring throughout the deceleration maneuver and then taking fine control of the cilia to make brief adjustments.</p>
<p>When they departed from geostationary orbit for the first time, Roxy had watched over Sollux’s shoulder as she operated the arcane biomechanical interface. That had been their first hostile repartee, Roxy expressing their distrust of the technology and Sollux responding in kind with her distrust of humans in general. Now that they were content to let her run the maneuver on her own, was that a sign of some growing trust?</p>
<p>The duo no longer chafed at one-another’s presence like they did at the beginning of this assignment. Out here, gigameters from Roxy’s home, some cooperation was sheer necessity. And nominally, they were supposed to be furthering interspecies cooperation. Well, in spite of their personal disagreements and fundamental cultural differences, the two of them had kept this hybrid spaceship from deteriorating for the first leg of their journey. Roxy fancied that they should get a medal when they get home, but that would almost certainly depend on the politics of the situation.</p>
<p>Triton was their destination, still too distant and small to be visible. Though frigid and hostile, the promise of liquid bodies under the icy crust had led trolls to begin terraforming it. All their biotechnology ultimately derived from the Stygian depths of their homeworld’s ocean, and this Neptunian moon would prove the perfect ground for an outpost, bringing Alternian manufacturing to the solar system for the first time. That it was on the edge of the solar system, a comfortable distance from Earth’s dense protective fleet was another advantage. A satellite staffed by humans and some lowbloods was overseeing the operation, which was largely engineered by the seadwelling caste. Dwarfed by the two massive terraforming vessels, it passively observed the process and sent scientific findings back.</p>
<p>In April, the expected transmission never came. Communications were opened with the Alternian fleet. The highbloods, of course, simply blamed it on a human equipment malfunction, something they couldn't diagnose or repair due to the different technological bases. Under the co-prosperity agreement, Terran government couldn't send a military vessel to conduct a rescue, so instead the Coalition Space Corps selected a scientific vessel with a hearty cargo complement. This long-distance voyage would prove an excellent test of their hybrid spacecraft.</p>
<p>The selection of crew was almost an afterthought, an interspecies skeleton crew, in case survivors of the accident needed ferrying home. The craft could house ten in a pinch. And they needed to be chosen in light of the delicate tensions between the two species. Oh, and in light of the potential for this to become a bloodbath if foul play was involve The uncomfortable implication Roxy picked up in the briefing was that the testbed vehicle YS-413, Warrant Officer Lalonde and Neophyte Captor were more or less expendable if this turned sour. There would not be a rescue ship for the rescue ship.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Organic Solvents</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A couple hours after Sollux completed the insertion burn, and all attendant stationkeeping afterwards, Roxy called for her. Following the sound, Sollux drifted into the communal space; a neutral ground between them if only because it contained the resistance exercise equipment and microwave, as well as the bulk of the server equipment. They were waiting in one of the science modules that jutted out of the main bulk of the ship, something she found peculiar.</p>
<p>“Okay, Lalonde, it's not like I have my own hobbies or anything. What do you want?” She grumbled, climbing through and joining them inside. The plaque near the docking ring labelled this compartment as the Joint Deep Space Biology lab. As far as she knew, the manifest contained no experiment packages, so what Roxy was doing in here was a mystery.</p>
<p>“Figure you got us this far without anything exploding, so I oughta hold out the olive branch. Ykno, in the name of interspecies cooperation, or maybe cus I think you aren't even the worst troll I've worked with.” They used a small hexagonal key to unlock the refrigerated experiment compartment, and pulled the rack out of the wall. Sollux counted ten plastic pouches of amber fluid that had been stashed away, each one sharpied “J.D. PROPERTY OF RO-LAL” in a familiar handwriting. They smiled at Sollux and in return she made the curious pout of someone deciding whether or not to be pissed.</p>
<p>“Booze, Roxy? Fucking hell, I knew you were a cowboy. We could get in so much trouble.” She ran a hand through her short hair and sighed, bringing her knees close to her chest in a subconsciously defensive posture. She ended up spinning gently for her trouble.</p>
<p>“Lighten up! Humans have been carrying hooch into orbit since, like, Yuri Gagarin or something. Unless one of your immaculately maintained ~ATH programs break down again, we've got exactly jack and shit in terms of responsibilities.” Roxy snatched up a couple pouches and stowed the rack, before spiralling over to Sollux and palming her a drink.</p>
<p>“Fuck you, I'm not drinking your garbage human toxins.” She grumbled.</p>
<p>“You know you're talking to a biochemistry major, right? Ethanol is achiral. You can drink it.” Roxy smirked, popping the cap of theirs and sipping a brief slurp out of it. “You're too cluckbeast to do it?”</p>
<p>“First off, you have no right saying the word cluckbeast, so F.U. And no, I just don't take drinks from strangers. You wouldn't either if you grew up with sadistic megalovaniacs for frenemies.” Roxy laughed at that excellent localisation of an Alternian concept, which made her all the more pissed off as she continued. “You think my childhood is funny?”</p>
<p>“Sol, this is what I mean. Take a load off and tell me about your fucked up hellworld or something. I've lived with you like, 29 days, and I barely know anything about you!”</p>
<p>Sollux was quiet about that point for a moment. She had a reason for not opening up, it was safer that way. But she also had to guess an emotionally-compromised human would probably not use the information for evil. Reluctantly, she thumbed open the drink and took a sip.</p>
<p>It burned going down, and going down was not even a trivial or fast process when your drink was floating down your gullet in bubbles or splashing against it and staying put. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and spluttered a bit, too proud to acknowledge it had been a long time since she got drunk.</p>
<p>“Okay, Roxy.” She spat, challenging them. “What do you want to know about me?”</p>
<p>Roxy had a lot of questions about growing up on Alternia. Relationships became a part of it, because no discussion of her childhood could leave out the part where someone's schizophrenic quadrant vacillation lead to her matesprit getting sent to an early grave.</p>
<p>“Jesus, I'm sorry.” They gasped, making a brazenly pale face of sympathy. Humans were so hard to understand.</p>
<p>“Shit happens. We weren't the only unlucky kids.” She grumbled. Roxy could sense there were more feelings on the matter that she wasn't willing to talk about right now. Roxy artfully changed the subject by asking what she wanted to know about them.</p>
<p>“Yeah, as if I don't already know everything I need to know about you.”</p>
<p>“Sol, you called me TG for the first week until I told you my real name.” A squabble over how she totally meant it ensued, and a few digressions later she caved and asked some questions about Roxy.</p>
<p>Roxy proved forthcoming and easy to talk to. They freely told all about their mom, a popular author of young adult fiction. About how they felt stuck in her shadow. About going to college to prove they could, major undecided, and finding a group of friends. How they spent the first year scraping by, going to parties and raves, until their drinking got out of control and mom made them spend the summer at home without a lick of booze around. About finding their passion and rescuing their tanking GPA.</p>
<p>“How come these best friends forever never send you mail?” She cocked a brow, and Roxy looked like they might lose it for a millisecond.</p>
<p>“So, in senior year, everyone starts figuring out where they want to go with their lives. Turns out all three of us were crushing on the fourth, badly, and tried to pull him in three different directions. I can't really, uh, say I was proud of what we did. Gave that poor guy anxiety.” They looked down, a habit they never quite knocked even when ‘down’ became a strictly relative term.</p>
<p>“Well, nobody was really talking to each other any more, and I almost relapsed. Instead, I cancelled my doctorate, cut off all my hair, decided I didn't want anything to do with gender and became a flight technician for IASA.” Roxy smiled a bit, and quickly added. “Which is the spark notes on why I'm sharing oxygen with you on our way to the 8th planet from the sun. Got all that?”</p>
<p>“If you'd let me know you were doing the whole life story thing I would have brought a pen.” Sollux chuckled. Neither of them had really stopped to have this conversation, and they had ended up in a kind of lazy orbit in the middle of the laboratory. “Now I feel like I undershared. Is that the only thing you can one up me at? Spilling your guts?”</p>
<p>“Bet I can one up you at Quake.” They shot back, slurping down the last of their whiskey until the bottle crumpled up empty.</p>
<p>“Fuck you, bring it.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Docking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Competitive head-to-head gaming was not, as it should happen, best executed while drunk and in a vastly different gravity regime than one grew up in. Not to mention that the only mice in space were the ones Roxy occasionally had to experiment with. Watching Sollux try to land rockets with a trackpad was at least pretty hilarious.</p>
<p>Roxy woke up anchored by duct-tape to the waste recycler. Humans could sleep just about anywhere when drunk, and in space getting comfy was as simple as curling up into the foetal position. Sollux had gotten her revenge for losing.</p>
<p>The days became more bearable after that. For one, waking up every day to see Neptune had drawn closer was an excellent clarification of purpose. Their destination seemed within grasp. And the tension between them had changed from vaguely xenophobic mistrust to...well, the tension had changed.</p>
<p>Of course, that didn't mean they stopped arguing. Alcohol, much like in chemistry, was a powerful social solvent, separating out the impurities until only the distilled essence of a relationship remained. On some level, Roxy had accepted this was an alien romance thing. It wasn't even in their top 5 most inappropriate workplace flirtations, but the caliginous element was uncharted territory.</p>
<p>An agreement was made without a single word passing between them. They began to spend more time together, whether that meant using their laptops in the same module, or staying on the radio when their presence was required elsewhere. The pair still fought and argued and aimed snarky comments at one another, but now with the fondness of an old married couple.</p>
<p>As they entered Neptunian space, Sollux’s fingers danced on his workstation keyboard while his crew member hummed in tune to Roxanne.</p>
<p>“To clarify, when your mom was naming you for a song about a prostitute, was it meant to be a prophetic thing? Or did she just hate your guts?” He said, perfectly capable of giving them shit while doing his job.</p>
<p>“Maybe she just figured it was a catchy song, you thought of that?” Roxy said and laughed, tabbing over from their emulated session of MegaMan to their primary responsibility.</p>
<p>“Sol, we’re linked up. Telemetry is coming in from the Triton network.”</p>
<p>“Which sat?” He asked over his shoulder.</p>
<p>“My main girl Peggy.” The primary comms satellite for the entire orbital network.</p>
<p>“Guess that rules out sat problems. Ugh. Is it logging orbits?”</p>
<p>“Let me just…” Roxy trailed off as they closed their game and queried the satellite. “Yeah, I'm downloading what it tracked in the last few weeks.”</p>
<p>A silence came over both of them, so that the only noise was Roxy’s playlist and the ambient sounds of the spacecraft. It was becoming increasingly likely that the crew was incapacitated or dead, and neither of them wanted to speculate. The awkwardness lasted for the entire download, until Roxy could provide something concrete and real.</p>
<p>“Hrm. The orbit is lower than it should be. There's no danger yet, but that means the Trident has skipped, uh...three scheduled stationkeeping burns.” They said, and bit their lip. Roxy tapped in some additional commands. “Handing the data to the flight computer. Guess we have to fly down there and investigate.”</p>
<p>Sollux didn't reply immediately, and when they glanced over he was looking right back at them. The discomfort in his expression was palpable. Roxy raised an eyebrow playfully and watched him look back to his computer quickly.</p>
<p>“I'll, uh, plan a transfer into a docking orbit.” He muttered quickly and distracted himself with the realm of hard numbers.</p>
<p>Roxy wondered if he was okay with them seeing his vulnerability. Or if he was supposed to be, even. Hundreds of hours in simulators, days in neutral buoyancy chambers, months of lectures, and nobody had ever thought to mention the intricacies of troll romance during their training. Roxy reckoned they should—it would at least prove more useful than the survival training in Siberia.</p>
<p>The YS-413 shortly began the carefully coordinated waltz over to the Trident. It was timed to bring them closest as they caught the meagre sunlight. Roxy was the best pilot and tragically diurnal, and Sollux had to admit the highest odds of success would involve them at the wheel.</p>
<p>As they swung to the brighter side of the ice-moon, Roxy saw the gargantuan terraforming ships out the window. They reminded her of beached whales, wearing ancient scars and bloated grotesquely. The asymmetric arrangement of organs seemed purposeless. There was no unifying logic behind the design.</p>
<p>“Jegus fuck, nobody told me these things were so creepy. Even by troll standards these things are fucked up, right?” They said over their earpiece radio.</p>
<p>“What? No, they're rad as fuck, you goddamn pansy. Aren't you a biologist? You should dig this.”</p>
<p>“I am, and that's why it's fucking awful. It's more like one of Lovecraft’s half-baked terrors than anything that evolved. How old are these things?”</p>
<p>“You can tell by the scars.” He said, and gave a tiny impulse to the maneuver cilia, drifting the craft slightly closer. It grew in Roxy’s vision, and they jumped a little—an eyelid as wide as they were tall blinked open, and a massive eye stared back at them. It felt like that gigantic cuttlefish pupil was watching them. The cornea was marked with a longitudinal scar that extended to the skin around the eye. Like Sollux said, the scar seemed recent.</p>
<p>“This guy is kinda new, barely any damage on the outside.” He remarked coolly, fascinated by the machines.</p>
<p>Roxy stayed as still as possible while it watched them drift away, and only let go of the breath they were holding when it blinked shut. Mercifully, the station was far away from the creatures. They couldn’t see the living ships by the time Sollux handed over control.</p>
<p>Roxy moved to the docking module, where a pair of joysticks could give the finest control. A monitor displayed numerous cameras, and another held vital numbers. Like their relative velocity in three-dimensional space, a triplet of digits that they carefully reduced to almost zero using the sticks. With all these cameras, their perspective was magnified greatly. It was a perfect opportunity to survey the damage.</p>
<p>“Is it just me, or is this thing basically intact? I mean, geez, talk about an underwhelming ghost ship.” They muttered, and carefully drifted to the other side of the Trident. Here, one of the radiators had sustained an impact. Not micrometeors, Roxy realised, more like a low velocity crash that crumpled the fragile structure. But that couldn’t have caused an entire station to go dark.</p>
<p>“Do you think you can dock with it?” He said.</p>
<p>“Confident. But the shield is closed over the hatch. Think you can take care of that for me?”</p>
<p>“One sec.” He transmitted on short-range radio the encrypted handshake that would give him access to the computerised systems assuming nobody had logged in recently. Unsurprisingly, it accepted, and with a few more keystrokes the docking shield on the Trident opened up. Coloured lights came on to guide the approach visually, and Roxy made a satisfied little hum, deploying the YS-413’s docking adapter.</p>
<p>Roxy teased closer to the station with the maneuver systems, but found the organic propulsion cilia were not nearly as binary and precise as the cold-gas thrusters they had trained on. Desiring stability, they deployed the cargo arm.</p>
<p>“What are you doing? We’re not lined up yet.” Sollux asked on the radio.</p>
<p>“Docking. What, you haven’t read the field manual?” They were sticking their tongue out with focus. The manipulator claw carefully extended toward the station.</p>
<p>“We appear to be out of field manuals. I guess I must have used the last one to wipe my ass with.”</p>
<p>Roxy ignored him and grappled onto the sturdy truss above the connector, locking the claw shut. Using both hands in unison, they reeled the ship in closer and closer, centimeters at a time. The male connector slid home and bottomed out with a dim thud. Roxy pumped their fist quickly. That brought their docking streak to 14 without an aborted approach. They released the cargo arm as the clamps brought the two spacecraft together as one. Now all that was left to do was enter.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Ghost Station</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sollux joined them in the docking module. In a few minutes, they would know if they could safely open the hatch. In the meantime, both of them got dressed in emergency pressure suits over their clothes, and closed the bulkhead doors to the rest of the ship. The Trident was still reading as pressurized, but they didn’t even know what was wrong inside of it yet.</p>
<p>“Pays to be prudent, Lalonde.” He reminded them, pulling out his half of the key for the secure storage locker. Roxy retrieved their half, and together they retrieved the weapons inside.</p>
<p>Not that they were quite loaded for bear. There were two webber pistols that could incapacitate without risking the integrity of the hull, superalloy combat knives, and velcro holsters for each weapon. Better to be safe than sorry if this turned out to be the result of racial tensions boiling over.</p>
<p>Armed, pressurized and mentally steeled, Roxy levered open the hatch. Immediately, they were glad for the helmet—the corpse of a troll was on the other side of the door, and it was not a clean death. Fat droplets of brown blood had pooled over the eyes, ears and airways. It would be classic barotrauma if there was any evidence of the station losing pressure.</p>
<p>The other trolls they found on board were the same except for the differing hues, and Sollux was beginning to look pale in the face. Further inside, the human habitation and lab block were full of the dead. The signs of struggle were obvious—broken lights and fixtures, not to mention the faces broken against hard edges, or the scrapes and scratches on the exposed skin of the dead.</p>
<p>“Hey, look at this.” Sollux said, beckoning them over to one body. It was the station’s commander according to the stripes of rank. Their face was unrecognisable, slammed repeatedly against the bulkhead until it was a mess of blood. Roxy wanted to puke.</p>
<p>“Sol, you have three seconds to give me a good reason why I needed this traumatic visual in HD.” They said.</p>
<p>“Look, have you been in a fight in micrograv? I have. You can’t get this kind of leverage without big G to help you out. Either they were attacked by hulking supertrolls, or he did this to himself. Look under everyone’s nails,” He said, and lifted the hand of the commander up for them to see. “Bet you this is his blood. Self inflicted injury.”</p>
<p>“You don’t mean…”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I do. Psychic bullshit. Crazy strong. The trolls, they just died outright. Brain explosion. Painless. The humans...you’re all too resistant, but something this strong would get through that. It drove them crazy.” He whispered like they were sharing some kind of conspiracy, clearly terrified to be near something like this. Roxy pushed the corpse to the back of the module with the others and closed their eyes. Figuring this out was a welcome distraction from the bodies.</p>
<p>“Those terraforming ships, right? How would a station know if they were going to collide with one? I mean, they’re all slick and black, basically only show up good on radar. And the station has to stay near enough to observe. What do those things do if they’re angry?” Roxy said, and the look Sollux gave them said it all.</p>
<p>“They’re derived from horrorterrors, Roxy, do the math. You think they…?”</p>
<p>“The radiator panels. That one we passed had a fresh scar.”</p>
<p>“They crashed. Not fast enough to fuck up the station...but enough to piss off the horrorterror.”</p>
<p>“Do you think the highbloods would have seen anything?” They said, floating back into the core of the station, looking for the mainframe.</p>
<p>“Roxy, they’re trolls. As far as they’re concerned, if the weak get in the way of the strong, they deserve it! Maybe they saw it and said nothing! It’s not like they wouldn’t be happy to get rid of a bunch of voyeuristic human scientists peeping their ancient creatures.” </p>
<p>“What...what do we do, then?” They asked. Sollux just shrugged.</p>
<p>“Call it in, I guess. Reboost back into a stable orbit.” He was accessing one of the station’s terminals with administrator privileges, and quickly transferred total control to the YS-413. “And stay out of the way of the terraformers.”</p>
<p>Both of them crawled back through the dead station to the dock. It got sealed tight before they risked taking off their helmets. Even back on board, they both reeked of decay from minutes spent in there, and Roxy almost retched, coughing on some bile.</p>
<p>Sollux sulked to the back of the ship and turned off his headset. Roxy didn’t even get a warning before the engines came on, squiggling against the void and forcing them into a higher orbit, putting them thousands of kilometres from those vile creatures.</p>
<p>Roxy left him to his own devices and compiled a report to transmit home—keeping it as brief and succinct as possible. They sent it home and dragged themselves into their sleeping nook, wrapping up tight in their fluffiest blankets. </p>
<p>Their dreams were haunted by the mangled faces of the dead, and the staring, unblinking eye of the alien ship.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Two-Body Problems</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Roxy refreshed their email for the third time this hour. Still nothing from ground control. Lightspeed delay could go to hell. Right now a message to Earth ought to take 4 hours there, and the reply another 4 back. They’d slept 9, so if a message hadn’t been sent then they must be deliberating over what to say. Convening councils, talking to senators. Ma’am, you understand if we send these instructions to them they will probably die? Okay, great. Got it. We’ll fax those out pronto!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were likely driving themselves crazy for nothing. The most conservative option would be to just have them return home. Chalk down twenty dead scientists to the Alternian death toll, it won’t even make a dent. Their families can be told there was an accident, and Roxy and Sollux can drink the memories away for the next sixty years.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It would be easier not to go crazy if Sollux would talk to them, but they hadn’t seen his face since getting back. What was a good kismesis supposed to do in a situation like this? They’d even settle for being a mediocre kismesis, honestly, but watching Sollux spiral into misery wasn’t doing their mental state any favours. If the interplanetary latency wasn’t in the way, they’d google it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Fuck it. They hadn’t joined the Corps to walk on eggshells. And if this counted as dipping their toes in pale, fine—both of them were single, and there wasn’t a soul for megametres. They crawled out of their personal cubby and jumped through the vehicle confidently, coming to a sudden stop against the hatch cutting off the troll half of the craft. Their instincts made them check the pressure was equal before they turned the valve and pushed it open, momentum carrying them into Sollux’s territory.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sollux was crying. He was clung to the ladder running along one wall, seeking out a stable anchor in the weightlessness. Tears would flow out of the corner of his eye and spread over it by surface tension, and he kept dabbing them with a cloth to keep them at bay. The room had the harsh acidic reek of vomit, and the troll was clammy and flushed in the face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What in the flying fuck do you want, Roxy?” He yelled. “Unless you’re here to tell me we’re leaving, just get out.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy bit their lip, looking him over. He was a pathetic figure like this, the pallor of terror accentuating his sharp bone structure. He must have been underweight even before coming to orbit. They floated closer to him, pushing off of the bulkhead to join him on the ladder, climbing a few rungs to be face to face with him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sollux, what is this about? I know you’ve seen corpses. You’ve probably grown up ready to kill, amirite?” Roxy said, cocking an eyebrow at him. “What was it ya said? Shit happens. I’m supposed to be the queasy human here, ain’t I?”</p>
<p><br/>“It’s not-I’m-”</p>
<p><br/><br/>“You’re over your matesprit. You can get over some nobodies.”</p>
<p><br/><br/>“It’s not about the nobodies, it’s about...fuck, you don’t get it at all. Do you know where we get all that weird tissue to culture? A fucking outer god lives on our homeworld. Every single one of us sleeps in a cocoon of soporifics so that we can tune out the nightmarish psychic frequencies. From the day we’re born. I know what those nightmares are like...and for those humans it was so intense that they mutilated themselves to stop thinking about it.” He spat at them, and Roxy passively watched it float closer before smacking it out of the air. <br/><br/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So yes, I’m a little hung up on the fact that, fuck. You grow up telling yourself it’s not so bad, it’s not creepy, it’s just flesh. It’s technology. We understand it. We control the effects of it. You guys use nuclear power and shield yourself from it, what’s the difference? But then…” He trailed off into oblivion.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then you see how you were one mistake away from death the whole time. Okay. I get it. But look at how you’re freaking out. What goddamn use are you to me like this, Sol?”</p>
<p><br/><br/>“They’re still <em> right there </em> . Nobody hears about accidents involving living ships...and I guess that in hindsight, I’m a dumbass for thinking that meant they didn’t happen. When has the empire told the truth about <em> anything? </em> All this time I...I…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy crossed the distance between them in a soft jump, and wrapped their arms around Sollux. The lanky troll felt cold against their body.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ve got a real fuckin’ anxious temperment sometimes. Lucky you’ve got a copilot like me, right?” They whispered, and felt him shudder.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Roxy...are you black for me or what?” They just laughed without a care in the world and squeezed him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know, I’m the human. Is this like, too much of a pale thing? Am I confusing your little alien dick?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s doing <em> something </em> to my...it’s not little, asshole.” Sollux had let go of the ladder, and now they were tumbling slowly in a huddle together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re funny. Let me tell you a little secret…” They touched his cheek, and pushed a thumb into his mouth. “I know which directory you keep your porn in, you fucking freak. Have you been squeezing off to that in here the whole trip?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What I do with my bulge stays between me and your mom, Lalonde.” He said, teeth bared like an animal on the defence. They pulled their thumb back after a little nip from those dangerous fangs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey! She married a troll, you know. What you’re saying is totes fucking disrespectful, first of all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy shone a disarming smile back at him, and with a flourishing twist they threw Sollux into the communal module, sending themselves back an equal measure. They chased him up into there, where he had caught onto the treadmill and looked pissed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“For the record, no, I haven’t been in a zero-G fight. But I have taken, like, 18 weeks of jiu-jitsu in lunar orbit. Who knew this was how it would pay off?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy grinned, and climbed over to Sollux, grabbing his shirt and giving him a hard kiss. He tasted like bile and kissed back with his meat-tearing incisors, leaving them with a cut on their lower lip.</p>
<p><br/><br/>“Now there’s the troll I wanted. Do you know why I threw you in here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Because you can’t go five minutes without snacking?” He said, rolling his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Because it has these.” They grabbed one of the resistive exercise bands from where they were carefully stowed, and used it to bind the two of them around their hips. There was some give, but it would inevitably bring them back close. A decent imitation of gravity, if for some reason you needed a pair of hips to slam together. Repeatedly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You know I hate workout schedules.” Sollux said wryly. He got the picture.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I think you’ll like this one.” They pushed off of the treadmill with a kick.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy was briefly the pilot of an engineless, eight-limbed spacecraft, which they promptly piloted into a vertex. In a corner, Sollux couldn’t slip away. They held his wrists and pushed him against the walls, one foot sliding into a groove. They could push with their leg and shove Sollux back into the corner as he tussled with them for control.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is this what it’s been building to? Every one of your lil’ mean comments was about getting into my pants, right?” They asked, grinding between his skinny thighs. Sollux had given up on breaking free, and he was holding onto Roxy like they were the only thing that mattered.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Don’t you keep me waiting with this coy bullshit.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why, do I have to do everything around here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sollux answered, groping through their sweatpants. His lips tugged into a smile and he squeezed a hand around his prize.</p>
<p><br/><br/>“God, humans are so fucking lewd. Your prick is like an unholy combination of a sex toy and a lava lamp. Like I could keep my hands off.” He said, licking his lips as Roxy grunted and thrust into his fist, totally into it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I now know way more about your fucking fantasies than I want to, Sol.” Their voice was down to a throaty rasp, and their hands tore at him, manhandling his pants down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Another kiss distracted him, and he could taste their coppery blood on that soft, hot tongue. He was naked from the waist down before he could protest. His clothes floated away, out of reach.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Fuckin’ christ, you’re twiggy. I could break you.” Roxy whispered, sliding one hand to his neck. Sollux gasped, surprised by the dirty talk they’d picked up. They made it sound as naturally human as ‘good morning’, not something coopted and false. His pump biscuit squirmed with glee—this was everything he’d imagined and more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy’s blunt little human claws dragged down his chest. They had a burning hot look in their eyes. A gorgeous colour, in his humble opinion. Regal. His eyes closed a little, relaxing. This fucked up romance was good. Better than he deserved. But he could enjoy it until it came crashing down. Like always.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sol?” They asked, poking his face. “You’re not looking very ‘hammer my guts and call me names’. You with me?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“With you.” He whispered, and pricked his claws on their stomach, scratching lower and tugging down their sweatpants. And novelty Kirby boxers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Human cock was everything he could have dreamed of. His hand went to it immediately. It was heavy and broad in the way the tip of a bulge never was, and the rigidity was like the kind of naughty toys a troll could get culled for owning. Roxy purred like a satisfied pridebeast at the attention, and pushed his hand away, taking control of the action again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With the elastic holding them close, Roxy ground into his crotch, frotting on his bulge. The sensation was like humping an unruly eel at first, but both of them got the hang of what they were doing and Sollux wrapped around them like ivy. They stayed coupled like that, Roxy’s hips slowly rolling back and forth. Sollux palmed at them through their t-shirt. It tore, and they chided him, pulling back a little and adjusting their grip of him. After a moment, he understood why—their crown was pushing on his nook insistently.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Flight engineer Captor, am I go for docking?” Roxy said, and laughed almost immediately.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I hate you so much. My hate for you could drown whales.” He dug claws into their hip and tried to pull them in, but they were insistent. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can’t punch your filtration cashews unless you ask me first!” Their shit eating grin filled his whole reality as they leaned in and kissed his neck.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Just call them kidneys, fuck. Roxy, please. I need this right now.” He squeezed his eyes shut, certain that they would have some new humiliating, migraine inducing bullshit for him to-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Oh. Oh, that was worth the wait. He wanted to scream out, but he bit down on the collar of their shirt. This forbidden fullness was mind-numbing. Roxy thrust a little, and he sobbed into the fabric between his teeth, lifting his legs into the air, toes curling in his gym socks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, you really needed this.” Roxy whispered. Their hands grabbed at his bony ass for purchase. Finding it, they pulled him all the way onto their cock, kissing him greedily. He twitched as the blunt head stabbed places only a highblood should be stimulating, drooling a little.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sol, baby, you're a real freak. Come on, ask for more.” They slapped one palm on his firm butt, and he jumped, snapped out of his blissful reverie.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you asking for fucking <em> permission </em> or is this a weird kinky humiliation thing?” He said, punctuating it with a grumble. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Uh, can I go for a superposition of those options and you collapse it into whatever turns you on the most?” Roxy smiled, a mouthful of blunt teeth reminding him of the cultural differences.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sollux didn't reply, grumbling in his throat as he disentangled from the nest of their limbs. His legs came up and he braced the balls of his feet on Roxy’s strong thighs, perching on top of them like a predator. From then, he controlled this; squatting over Roxy, he rode slowly, accustoming to the painful completeness. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Don't move a fucking muscle, I'll do this right.” He said. Roxy made a little affirmative sound and held his waist.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were quick learners. Soon it didn't take <em> all </em> of Sollux’s concentration to ride them, and his clawed hands were crawling all over them. He scraped their smooth midriff, heard them hiss in pain, watched tiny beads of red blossom where the scratches were deepest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy wasn't built with razor sharp natural weapons—they returned the slight by thrusting against Sollux, pounding the back of his nook hard enough to wind him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The tempo of their hatemaking was growing. The only sounds in Sollux’s world were the groans Roxy made when he clenched on them, or the little gasps when he gave them a new scrape or bite.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Lalonde, things are gonna...I'm gonna cum. A lot. I need-”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy kissed him, and the next thing he knew there was a silky sensation on his bulge. They had taken their torn-up shirt and bundled it around him, hand tight at the base to keep it from slipping away. The pressure wasn't helping things at all, and when they started to fuck him nice and slow, he could no longer hold back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sollux chirped like a wiggler as he soaked their shirt with genetic material. Roxy went still, holding him tenderly as he curled and cooed. Their hand squeezed and moved just slightly, wringing every drop of his filial contribution into the soaked rag. It felt like his orgasm lasted a lifetime, and when he finally finished he was panting for air and blinking stars from his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Was that-do humans, uh. Did you get off? Do humans cum like in-”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, Sollux,” They said, smug as a Cheshire Cat. “We can cum.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy resumed fucking him, an agonizing excess of stimulation right after he'd been milked dry. He pushed at their chest, and wanted to cry for them to stop, but it came out like a strangled mewl of overwhelming pleasure. They still had a hand clamping around his bulge, squeezing through the cotton. This was it for him—Roxy was gonna fuck any capacity for thought right out of his thinkpan.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He didn't notice the way they tensed, only the wonderful way their breath hitched for a split-second. It was all the warning he got. Roxy filled him, and it was just as burning hot as the rest of them. It settled in his core, not as voluminous as his secretions but fascinatingly sticky and so, so warm. They went still and curled around him like a protective lusus, and neither of them said anything for a long while.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Still hate me?” Roxy eventually asked him, stroking a hand on his face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Obviously.” Sollux said, face hidden in their wispy blond hair. It was so impossibly soft compared to any troll he'd ever known. “Does this...do you want to be my kismesis?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roxy laughed, squeezing him in their strong arms. With their chests so close, he could feel their racing heart.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sol, it's too early in the night for me to answer that. Let me check my emails and get some coffee.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They didn't move to go do either of those things just yet. Sollux found that answer explanatory enough.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. (Free) Falling Action</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“How’s that look on your side, babe?” Roxy asked on the radio.</p><p> </p><p>“That did the trick, I guess? Fucking human tech. Kinda hard to tell.” Sollux sighed, floating from monitor to monitor in the core module of the Trident. She was wearing Roxy’s pajamas and rubbing her temples as she interpreted the numbers. “Sure, I’m willing to say that looks like we’re back at peak cooling potential. I’m gonna retract some control rods and get back on the YS.”</p><p><br/><br/>“See you in five.” They said, flying up to the window and giving Sollux a thumbs up, then spiraled away on their thrusters. </p><p> </p><p>When the message from ground control came in, it was clear why it had taken so long. Outlined in the instructions was a new proposal; Roxy and Sollux would spend a few days repairing the Trident and program it for automated attitude control. The cargo modules on the YS-413 would be transferred to berthings along the Trident’s central truss—the report included a handy diagram of positions that would keep the station from becoming unbalanced.</p><p> </p><p>Though they could remain in orbit for months if necessary, neither wanted to spend a moment longer than necessary around the terraforming organisms. For three intense days, they were working 14 hour shifts. Roxy performed the bulk of the EVA, with Sollux joining for particularly tricky sessions.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile Sollux was recalibrating the station to be self-sufficient for a little while. Earth would send up more scientists eventually, but Trident might be a ghost ship for years. Until then, it would need to perform stationkeeping by itself—this wasn’t too hard, since it already calculated those maneuvers automatically, Sollux just needed to give the station permission to make them on it’s own.</p><p> </p><p>Then there was the matter of power. The reactor had failsafes, and had powered down when the radiator fin sheared off. A smart precaution, because otherwise the Trident would be a molten radioactive wreck, but Sollux didn’t have to be <em> happy </em> about the twelve step process of bringing it back online.</p><p> </p><p>Their free time was not always synchronised, but when it was they usually ended up tangled together and naked. Roxy showed Sollux just about every way you could tie someone up with bungee cords and duct tape, and in turn Sollux got to memorise every inch of their bulge. They still hadn’t had a proper conversation about what they were right now.</p><p> </p><p>When the repairs were done, they used their engines to reboost the satellite into a higher orbit, far from the influence of the troll ships. The detach felt like it deserved more fanfare, but Sollux and Roxy toasted to leaving the ice moon behind them as they drifted away.</p><p> </p><p>Dropping off the cargo of replacement parts left their ship massing nearly half as much as when they arrived. The thrust to weight ratio of the troll engine system was surprising at first, nearly ripping Roxy out of their spot with a whole G of acceleration. </p><p> </p><p>Inevitably on their journey, between sex and interspecies movie marathons, came time to discuss their plans when they got back to Earth.</p><p> </p><p>“I think I’m gonna push for the Corps to take horrorterrors seriously as a threat. My mom did a lot of writing on them before she passed, but it’s still unpublished.” Roxy said, ignoring the crappy troll remake of Stand By Me that was playing on three screens.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, you sure about that? The seadwellers <em> really </em> don’t fucking take well to anyone discussing them. I know you’re got a death wish, but still.”</p><p><br/><br/>“I was actually gonna ask if you’d help me.” They turned to him with a little smile.</p><p> </p><p>“In a heartbeat.” He replied, before adding, “If I don’t, you’ll fuck it up and make a fool of yourself, and then I’ll be the guy in a kismesis with a clinically-proven moron. A brainless sexy maggot. A-”</p><p> </p><p>“Point taken, Sol. I just feel like we’re in the fuckin’ atomic age, where we paint our kids toys with lead paint and get glow in the dark uranium coffee mugs. Except we’re grafting squiddy bits onto spacecraft and fornicating with aliens.”</p><p> </p><p>“You think you can do better?” He asked, and watched Roxy chew their lip thoughtfully for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>“I dunno, babe. But it’s worth it to find out.”</p>
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